Region 6 school district begins 2013-14 budget work

LITCHFIELD >> The Region 6 Board of Education met with members of the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance from its member towns of Morris, Warren and Goshen Monday to begin discussions on the proposed 2013-14 school budget.

"We wanted to allow everyone the opportunity to enter into a dialogue and provide whatever guidance you think is necessary sooner rather than later," said Region 6 Superintendent Edward Drapp.

Drapp said the school district and the Board of Education realize these are tough times for a lot of people, and they have tried to keep the school budget increases to minimal amounts, while continuing to try to provide quality programs throughout the region.

Drapp said the district has worked with the towns and other school districts to seek efficiencies. They have looked at energy and oil consumption. They have looked at staffing. This year, teachers negotiated pay freezes. Next year administrators will see a pay freeze.

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The current budget stands at $17,509,876.

Goshen First Selectman Wilrose Duquette said it isn't going to be an easier year than it was last year.

"It will be a tough year and we're just hoping that you can continue as a board to do the kind of work you've done the last two to three years," said Duquette.

Drapp said historically Goshen has paid from 45 to 46 percent of the assessment based on the number of pupils the town has within Region 6. Last year, Goshen dipped below 45 percent. "They saw about $250,000 shift from Goshen to Warren and Morris just based on numbers of students," said Drapp.

The biggest challenge is the declining enrollment. Goshen Center School enrollment peaked in 2004-05 at 232 students and then declined to 186 students in 2012-13, a 19.82 percent loss.

"The drop in student enrollment is fairly drastic," said Drapp.

In Morris, James Morris School's enrollment peaked in 2007-08 with 211 students and then declined steadily to 154 students in 2012-13, a drop of 27 percent, according to a handout.

Warren School enrollment peaked in 2005-06 at 117 students then saw a decline of 29 percent with current enrollment of 83 students. Five of the students are transported to Goshen Center School, reducing the number of children in the building to 78.

Currently there are 30 classroom teachers providing services to 423 students at the elementary school level.

Wamogo Regional High School enrollment is projected to remain near or above the 2011 count of 553 students over the next three years, according the region's annual report. By 2021, it is expected that student population will decline to about 415 students, a difference of 25 percent from the 2011 enrollment.

Drapp said they need to continually respond to declining enrollment.

"We have 50 fewer students than was even projected this year," said Drapp. If that continues, could be a huge challenge."

Drapp said even if they were to continue to maintain their budget at zero, the cost per pupil would go up.

In 2006-07 school year, the region peaked at 1,124 student population but is projected to see a decline of 840 students in 2021, according to the region's annual report.

Drapp said one of the things he will be looking at is class size. The region has abnormally low class sizes compared to the statewide average.

"It does eat up a lot of resources to maintain low classes," said Drapp. "We have a class as low as five."

Drapp they have class sizes between 10 and 12 as well. As Drapp looks at student numbers they will be proposing class sizes more within established guidelines that are demonstrating improvement not to impact education negatively.

"I am not here to slash and burn the budget, slash and burn staffing but there are opportunities to configure our classrooms differently," said Drapp.

Drapp said Tuesday that an Enrollment Task Force Committee consisting of 13 members created in the spring of 2012 has been charged with looking at all alternatives and options to address the declining enrollment. The first meeting was in November.

The committee has agreed to hire a consultant to work with the group.

The consultant will look at the various alternatives and just how the committee would want to proceed.

"All of the options are preliminary," said Drapp. [The] committee wants to get out on the table, open it up to the public for discussion. There is talk on doing a survey of parents and community members."

Options will look at alternative configurations, look at closing one of the school and another one would be reconfiguring grading in the school and certainly looking at closing all the elementary school and having a single facility on the Wamogo Regional High School campus.

"Everything is very preliminary, they just want to start the discussion and understand the educational and financial implication of the alternatives," said Drapp. "We're not unique in this and hopefully we get information out to people, but no decision has been made but certainly start the discussion."